From 'The Art of Reading Scripture' (See previous post for bibliographical info.)

1. Scripture truthfully tells the story of God's action of creating, judging, and saving the world.
2. Scripture is rightly understood in light of the church's rule of faith as a coherent dramatic narrative.
3. Faithful interpretation of Scripture requires an engagement with the entire narrative: the New Testament cannot be rightly understood apart from the Old, nor can the Old be rightly understood apart from the New.
4. Texts of Scripture do not have a single meaning limited to the intent of the original author. In accord with Jewish and Christian traditions, we affirm that Scripture has multiple complex senses given by God, the author of the whole drama.
5. The four canonical gospels narrate the truth about Jesus.
6. Faithful interpretation of Scripture invites and presupposes participation in the community brought into being by God's redemptive action - the church.
7. The saints of the church provide guidance in how to interpret and perform Scripture.
8. Christians need to read the Bible in dialogue with diverse others outside the church.
9. We live in the tension between the "already" and the "not yet" of the kingdom of God; consequently, Scripture calls the church to ongoing discernment, to continually fresh rereadings of the text in light of the Holy Spirit's ongoing work in the world.

I think they're pretty good. What do you reckon?

I've just bought and am very excited about starting to read 'The Art of Reading Scripture' (ed. Ellen Davis and Richard Hays, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

In their introduction, the editors explain how the book arose out of a seminar including scholars and pastors with specialisms including OT, NT, systematics, church history and parish ministry.

As one member of the group remarked, at one time the church's great interpreters of Scripture (such as Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin and Luther) did not think of themselves narrowly as specialists in Old or New Testament or in theology or church history; for them the interpretation of the Bible was a seamlesly integrated theological activity that spoke directly to the needs of the church. Thus what we were doing, he joked, was assembling a group of fifteen specialists to function corporately as a "Complete Theologian".

I think it's a laudible project to get specialists in different branches of theology talking to each other. But I also think it's a little sad that we feel the need to make specialists in the first place. Shouldn't we all be seeking to be 'Complete Theologians' rather than what I think David Field used to call 'Monster Theologians' with one part wildly swollen and others barely existent?

I was encouraged that when Doug Green was inaugurated as full professor here last week, he was given the title 'Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Theology' which seems to be at least a nod in the direction of a broadening interest.